We Are the Barbarians:
Consequences of Colonialism in Iraqby M. Junaid Alamwww.dissidentvoice.org
April 20, 2004First Published in
Left Hook

Jaw
agape and fangs unsheathed, American colonialism has lashed out with severe
brutality against the newly-unified Iraqi resistance, counting on its
military might to crush the aspirations of Iraqis who seek to liberate their
country from foreign control.

Relying so heavily on the
force of arms against a people it claims to liberate, the US has inverted
Clausewitz’s famous dictum that war is a continuation of politics by other
means; our policy now is politics as a continuation of war by
other means.

But it so happens that this
is a double-edged sword -– with both edges thrust firmly into the heart of
the occupation. For no matter how many Iraqi patriots America kills, ten
more will spring forward for each who has fallen; and no matter how many are
silenced by American bullets, the viciousness and arrogance with which those
bullets were fired will speak loudly and convincingly to thousands of Iraqis
who will be inspired to resist.

To illustrate our point it
is necessary only to direct our gaze upon that great unfolding tragedy of
Fallujah, the epicenter and icon of Iraqi resistance. US forces surrounded
and attacked the city on the grounds of pursuing Iraqis who killed and then
mutilated the bodies of four American mercenaries. The massive assault was
carried out with the usual concern for civilian life: namely, none.

‘Precision’ weapons such as
2,000 lb. bombs and the massive Specter gunship, armed with four
high-powered machine guns, were brought to bear against the town, as were
attack helicopters and 60-ton tanks. Our troops employed such life-saving
tactics as lobbing 18 tank shells into one house to kill one person and
firing helicopter missiles at a rebel wielding a slingshot.
(1) One Fallujah resident explained to the press, “As soon as the
Americans see a group of people in the streets, they shoot at them, people
venture out only if their homes risk being bombarded or if they must carry
the dead or wounded to the city’s clinics.” A young Iraqi member of the
US-created Civil Defense Corps saw “heavy bombings” with the town market
hit, and “tanks ringing the town.” (2) US snipers in the
city, perhaps the only precision weapons deployed, have put their uniqueness
to good use: shooting through ambulance windshields and killing their
drivers. (3)

What were the broad
consequences of this operation for the people of Fallujah? Thousands have
fled and over 600 have been killed; the main hospital director said “most of
the 600 dead in Fallujah were women, children, and elderly.”
(4) Another volunteer doctor reported that “The main hospital was taken
over by the Americans. Doctors and patients had to evacuate to local health
clinics.” This resulted in even more suffering: “patients had to lie on the
ground because of a shortage of beds. We were doing operations in the open.
But we didn’t have enough sterilizing equipment.” He added, “About half the
injured are women, children, and the elderly.” (5) Those
who needed to be operated upon received no anesthetics, which were
“lacking”, according to a Red Crescent official. (6) Such
were the horrors under which thousands suffered and hundreds died.

Let us be honest with
ourselves: this barbarous assault had nothing to do with capturing anyone.
One never sets out to capture a handful of people by mounting a military
assault on a town of 300,000. Those rebels responsible for the four US
deaths most likely melted away into more remote areas long ago. In fact, US
officials have now dropped the demand for a hand-over of the offending
rebels altogether. (7) No, this vicious attack upon an
entire city bore the hallmarks not of any manhunt, but rather that of an
arrogant power lashing out at what infuriates it most: humiliation.

For the open, unrestrained,
and public attack on those four “security contractors” with guns in tow --
probably on their way to kill Iraqis -– marked a definitive crossing of that
line in colonial relations which separates occupier and occupied, dominator
and dominated. The destruction, dismemberment and hanging of the bodies of
men who usually have their heels placed on the neck of the native represents
a violent rejection of the rules of colonialism. Our forces, which
throughout our history are used to burying our enemies alive in the sands or
napalming and carpet-bombing them into oblivion, could not tolerate the
native’s unforgivable crime of raising his eyes to meet ours. Thus began an
orgy of violence to render the native not only blind, but deaf, dumb, and
dead.

But listen closely: the
jarring sound of a thousand Starbucks café doors bursting open fills the
air; and a thousand “liberals”, their tempers hotter than the cappuccinos
they wield, start shrieking: “You endorse barbaric violence! You have no
absolute moral values!” What these sages fail to understand is that
anti-colonial struggle does not unfold like pull-out sofa-beds in their
living rooms, nor does it bloom like budding flowers in their gardens. As
Frantz Fanon, the most powerful writer on colonialism and a famous figure of
the Algerian liberation campaign against the French, wrote: “The violence
with which the supremacy of white values is affirmed and the aggressiveness
which has permeated the victory of these values…mean that, in revenge, the
native laughs in mockery when Western values are mentioned in front of him
[...] the colonized masses mock at these very values, insult them, and vomit
them up.”

More notable is the
peculiar timing the liberal faction has chosen to invoke its noble “absolute
moral values.” Where were they when hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were
dying of sanctions? Where were they when thousands more were being killed
during the first phase of the war? The answer: precisely where they are now,
on the sidelines or complicit in imperialism, when Iraqis are being made
homeless, amputated upon without anesthetics, and gunned downed like wild
beasts. Only when violence is being committed by a force completely
out of their control do they raise a voice of indignant protest. Such
consistent cowardice certainly takes the “absoluteness” of their values
right out of them.

What our liberals fail to
comprehend, our generals grasp with ease. Brigadier General Kimmit, when
informed about Arab anger at seeing so many slain Iraqi innocents on TV,
responded: “Change the channel…The stations that are showing Americans
killing women and children are not legitimate news sources.”
(8) Any outlet shedding light on the havoc wrought by American armor, or
focusing on the deaths of Iraqi women and children, is “not legitimate.”
That the hospital reports confirm these “not legitimate” channels is of
course irrelevant; what is relevant is our racism, our dismissal of Arab
life, the “legitimacy” of which is derived from firing the bullet rather
than being pierced by it.

Kimmit himself knows this
full well. But knowing the dialectics of colonialism, the general is also a
part of it: the colonizer’s side. His crass dismissal of the native’s life,
both in rhetoric and action, are strands of a thread trying to symbolically
sow back together the bodies of those four dismembered hired guns – an
attempt to sow back together the status and position of colonial power.

It is an attempt that will
fail. Iraqis have already crossed the threshold of enduring resistance; the
bridge beyond that threshold was laid by the same arrogance and brutality
now being employed to sever it. A Baghdadi day-laborer who was long
experiencing what a reporter called “humiliation, fear, anger, and
depression,” said, “in the last two weeks, these feelings blow up inside me.
The Americans are attacking Shiite and Sunni at the same time. They have
crossed a line. I had to get a gun.” A young 13 year-old boy in Baghdad
said, “We may be scared of [American] weapons. But we’re not scared of
them.” (9)

The people have discovered,
to borrow Fanon’s words, “that the settler’s skin is not of any more value
than a native’s skin; and it must be said that this discovery shakes the
world in a very necessary manner…For if, in fact, my life is worth as much
as the settler’s, his glance no longer shrivels me up or freezes me…in fact,
I don’t give a damn for him. Not only does his presence not trouble me, but
I am already preparing such efficient ambushes for him that soon there will
be no way out but that of flight.”

This is true not of one or
two individuals but the entire city: the US press recently reported that the
siege of Fallujah has “produced a powerful backlash in the capital. Urged on
by leaflets, sermons, and freshly sprayed graffiti calling for jihad, young
men are leaving Baghdad to join a fight that residents say has less to do
with battlefield success that with a cause infused with righteousness and
sacrifice.” The American reporters also came upon a group of young men
discussing the need to resist – among them “a dentist, a prayer leader, a
law student, [and] a lieutenant colonel in the Iraqi police…” As one
teenager hopped into a truck with other volunteers, he smiled and shouted to
the reporters, “We will defeat you, God willing.” (10)

Fallujah resonates with
Iraqis beyond bravado and an increasing will to fight - it has had the
thoroughly revolutionary effect of uniting the previously discordant Sunni
and Shia groups in solidarity for a common cause. Last week in Baghdad,
“Solemn announcements boomed from mosques…beseeching Iraqis for donations of
blood, money and medical supplies for ‘your sons and brothers struggling in
Fallujah’. And across the capital, Shiite Muslims joined the Sunnis in
rolling up their sleeves and reaching into their pockets.” One poor old
woman had arrived with the last food in her home, ready to donate “for my
brothers in Fallujah”. Both Sunnis and Shias “filled a tent erected behind
the shrine, flexing and unflexing their fists to push blood from their veins
into plastic sacks that would be carried to war wounded in Fallujah,” a
scene repeated across 70 Sunni mosques across Baghdad. (11)

A day later almost 200,000
Iraqis, “many of them Shias, crowded into the precinct of Baghdad’s largest
Sunni mosque to denounce the American occupation and pledge solidarity with
the people of Fallujah” and the Shiite uprising. (12) The
main preacher thundered, “The Americans invaded the land of Iraq, but they
did not penetrate its people or their souls.” He later declared, “The
Americans are carrying out vicious terrorist attacks on the people of
Falluja,” and “hundreds of people wept” in response. Shias and Sunnis
organized large aid convoys and led them toward Fallujah to relieve the
plight of their fellow countrymen, bypassing or overrunning US military
blockades. (13)

This heroic display of
sacrifice and solidarity, achieved by a people beaten and battered time and
time again, rings as a thundering indictment of those racist liberals and
pundits who brandish the threat of “civil war” in Iraq to maintain our
stranglehold on that country.

Of course, this has not
prevented certain “practical men” from insisting on the feasibility of
“pacifying” Fallujah and Najaf, of reestablishing control and crushing and
isolating militants. For them, the superficial is the whole. The lull in
violence in Fallujah, brought about by the partial cease-fire, combined with
Sadr’s signs of willingness to negotiate in Najaf, signal to them that the
troubles are nearing an end.

But the dynamics of
colonialism are not those of a set-piece battle. The fact that the colonial
apparatus is negotiating with Sadr at all shows that they understand he is a
force who must be reckoned with. Sadr’s maneuvering to avoid a bloodbath in
Najaf also shows that he is tactful, not suicidal. In an insurgency, there
is no army on the battlefield to be destroyed; the army is the people, who
can be mobilized at a moment’s call with any number of light weapons.

The New York Times recently
saw this process in motion: “The Khadamiya bazaar exploded in a frezy.
Shopkeepers reached beneath stacks of sandals for Kalashnikov rifles. Boys
wrapped their faces in black cloth. Men raced through the streets, kicking
over crates and setting up barriers. Some handed out grenades. Within
minutes this entire Shiite neighborhood in central Baghdad mobilized for
war.” (14) Given that mass support for the resistance has
only spread, the idea that it will simply fizzle out as if by magic is
utterly baseless.

The supposed lull in
fighting does not even reflect actual conditions on the ground. On April 12,
guerrillas shot down an Apache helicopter 3 miles outside Baghdad’s airport
and “cut off communications between military posts on a key road leading
west from the city,” where numerous ambush attacks have been launched.
(15) These attacks also extend to the south of Baghdad,
where “A convoy of flatbed trucks carrying M113 armored personnel vehicles
was ambushed and burnt.” US supply lines to Fallujah, Ramadi, and further
forces down south have also been disrupted. (16)

Insurgents have also
“sharply increased the sophistication, coordination and aggressiveness of
their tactics” according to US Army officers, blowing up and crippling
bridges and highways to be used by American convoys, reflecting what one
colonel described as “a regional or even national level of organization.”
This has been precipitated by what another US major described as “a marriage
of convenience between Sadr’s militia and Saddam loyalists.”
(17)

But we must look behind the
propaganda to truly grasp this remarkable development. The “Saddam
loyalists”, who were expected to blow up bridges to halt the American
advance in March 2003, never materialized. They have taken action only now
-and in cooperation with the poorest element of the Shia community. Why? We
must admit that that these so-called “Saddam loyalists” were never loyal to
Saddam – that they are in fact genuine nationalists within what was the
Iraqi Army has been proven through both their past inaction and present
action.

This applies even to
Fallujah, where one US soldier said, “It’s the fight that never came last
year. I guess these guys didn’t really want to die for Saddam. But all this
anti-American feeling is now uniting them.” (18) Such
“anti-American feeling” is quite understandable, given that Iraqis are being
murdered in assaults planned by American commanders who hold Nazi attitudes
towards Arabs as “untermeschen”, according to a senior British
officer. (19)

The most desperate argument
now being aired by assorted ‘experts’, however, is that regardless of the
violence, all Iraq needs is to “move the political process forward.” But the
utter failure of the occupation authorities to exercise its
political-diplomatic muscle in coping with the resistance is a good
indication that those muscles have either atrophied or never existed. The
Iraqi Governing Council almost completely fell apart when the atrocities in
Fallujah took place; four members resigned and the others were forced to
denounce it in strong terms as “collective punishment” to avoid appearing
like complete puppets in front of the populace. (20)

Even the Iraqi Civil
Defense Corps, trained and funded by the US, has failed the occupation. A
whole battalion refused to serve in Fallujah, announcing “We did not sign up
to fight Iraqis.” One Iraqi soldier, whose comrades were jailed for not
partaking in the fighting, declared, “How could an Iraqi fight an Iraqi like
this? This meant that nothing had changed from the Saddam Hussein days. We
refused en masse.” (21) Others simply dropped out or
defected to the resistance.

The response of American
officials has been laughably pathetic. One general blithely announced, “The
lines are blurring for a lot of Iraqis right now, and we’re having a lot of
problems with security functions right now.” (22) The
truth of the matter is that the lines are not “blurring” but sharpening, as
more and more Iraqis come to see the undesirability of colonialism and the
violence with which it announces its presence.

No credible
occupation-backed domestic government or military force exists. It is
therefore not possible to speak of any legitimate political process in the
colonial context. Come the June 30th “handover”, there will be nothing to
hand over to anyone and no one to hand over anything to. No amount of
violence or sophistry will suffice to inflate this farce enough to prevent
its puncturing by that demand which many Iraqis are now willing to lay down
their lives for: freedom.

Implicit in any recognition
of this demand for freedom is an obligation upon the citizens of that nation
which is denying freedom’s fulfillment: absolute, unwavering, and resolute
struggle against the platform of war by the people of the United States.
This is, in essence, a demand to re-civilize ourselves. We must shatter the
illusions crafted by our own elite that so often send us cowering into the
corners of hatred and paranoia against this or that invented or exaggerated
demon.

It is high time for us to
cease imagining that we are merely “defending” ourselves against ubiquitous
- and convenient - “barbarians at our gates.” Let us instead open our eyes,
and look upon those charred, mangled gates of Chile, Nicaragua, Indonesia,
Vietnam, Palestine and now Iraq with an honest gaze. Let us angle away from
the homes and bodies of the racial Other those torches we have been wielding
so violently for decades, and instead aim them towards our own very real
demons of racism and oppression to set them aflame; in their burning
fires we may yet illuminate our own humanity and rediscover our innate
connection with peoples abroad.

M.
Junaid Alam, 21, is co-editor & webmaster of
Left Hook, where this
article first appeared. He can be reached at
alam@lefthook.org.